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I and Thou
Paperback
Published February 1, 1971
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About the author
Martin Buber
413 books473 followersMartin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship.
Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, Buber became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In 1923 Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925 he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language.
In 1930 Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and resigned in protest from his professorship immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body as the German government forbade Jews to attend public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany and settled in Jerusalem, in the British Mandate of Palestine, receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and introductory sociology.
Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, Buber became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In 1923 Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925 he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language.
In 1930 Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and resigned in protest from his professorship immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body as the German government forbade Jews to attend public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany and settled in Jerusalem, in the British Mandate of Palestine, receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and introductory sociology.
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June 29, 2024
A TRUE MASTERWORK OF 20TH CENTURY RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY
Martin Buber (1878-1965) was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher and scholar of the Hasidic movement. He taught philosophy from 1938-1951 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This book (`Ich und Du' in the German) was first published in 1923. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 185-page paperback edition.]
He begins with the statement, “The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak. The basic words are not single words but word pairs. One basic word is the word pair ‘I-You.’ The other basic word is the word pair ‘I-It’; but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It. Thus the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the basic word I-You is different from that in the basic word I-It.” (Pg. 53) He continues, “The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being. The basic word I-It can never be spoken with one’s whole being. (Pg. 54)
He observes, “Whoever says You does not have something for his object. For wherever there is something there is also another something; every It borders on other Its; It is only by virtue of bordering on others. But where You is said there is no something. You has no borders. Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.” (Pg. 55) He adds, “The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It. The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation.” (Pg. 56)
He explains, “I contemplate a tree. I can accept it as a picture… I can feel it as movement… I can assign it to a species… I can dissolve it into a number… and externalize it… But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It… This does not require me to forego any of the modes of contemplation… The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I must deal with it---only differently. One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity.” (Pg. 57-58)
He states, “What, then, does one experience of the You? Nothing at all. For one does not experience it. What, then, does one know of the You? Only everything. For one no longer knows particulars. The You encounters me by grace---it cannot be found by seeking. But that I speak the basic word to it is a deed of my whole being, is my essential deed. The You encounters me. But I enter into a direct relationship to it… All actual life is encounter. The relation to the You is unmediated.” (Pg. 62)
He notes, “The It-world hangs together in space and time. The You-world does not hang together in space and time. The individual You MUST become an It when the event of relation has run its course. The individual It CAN become a You by entering into the event of relation.” (Pg. 84) He adds, “Even whispering an amorous ‘You’ with one’s soul is hardly dangerous as long as in all seriousness one means nothing but experiencing and using.” (Pg. 85)
He points out, “Marriage can never be renewed except by that which is always the source of all true marriage: the two human beings reveal the You to one another. It is of this that the You that is I for neither of them builds a marriage. This is the metaphysical and metapsychical fact of love which is merely accompanied by feelings of love.” (Pg. 95) Later, he adds, “When a man loves a woman so that her life is present in his own, the You of her eyes allows him to gaze into a ray of the eternal You.” (Pg. 154)
He states, “The spirit is truly ‘at home with itself’ when it can confront the world that is opened up to it, give itself to the world, and redeem it and, through the world, also itself. But the spirituality that represents the spirit nowadays is so scattered, weakened, degenerate, and full of contradictions that it could not possibly do this until it had first returned to the essence of the spirit: being able to say You.” (Pg. 100)
He argues, “The linguistic form proves nothing. After all, many a spoken You really mean an It to which one merely says You from habit, thoughtlessly. And many a spoken It really means a You whose presence one may remember with one’s whole being, although one is far away… If one sentence truly intends the You of a relation and the other one the It of an experience, and if the I in both sentences is thus intended in truth, do both sentences issue from the same self-consciousness?” (Pg. 111)
He clarifies, “Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons. One is the spiritual form of natural differentiation, the other that of natural association. The purpose of setting oneself apart is to experience and use, and the purpose of that is ‘living’---which means dying one human life long. The purpose of relation is the relation itself---touching the You. For as soon as we touch a You, we are touched by a breath of eternal life.: (Pg. 112-113)
He suggests, “all names of God remain hallowed---because they have been used not only to speak OF God but also to speak TO him…whoever pronounces the word God and really means You, addresses, no matter what his delusion, the true You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other and to whom he stands in a relationship that includes all others. But whoever abhors the name and fancies that he is godless---when he addresses with his whole devoted being the You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other, he addresses God.” (Pg. 123-124)
He observes, “in truth, there is no God-seeking because there is nothing where one could not find him. How foolish and hopeless must one be to leave one’s way of life to seek God: even if one gained all the wisdom of solitude and all the power of concentration, one would miss him.” (Pg. 128)
He says, “God embraces but is not the universe; just so, God embraces but is not my self. On account of this which cannot be spoken about, I can say in my language, as all can say in theirs: You. For the same of this there are I and You, there is dialogue, there is language, and spirit whose primal deed language it, and there it, in eternity, the word.” (Pg. 143)
He explains, “Three are the spheres in which the world of relation is built: The first: life with nature, where the relation sticks in threshold of language. The second: life with men, where it enters language. The third: life with spiritual beings, where it lacks but creates language.” (Pg. 149-150)
He notes, “By its very nature the eternal You cannot become an It; because by its very nature it cannot be placed within measure and limit, not even within the measure of the immeasurable and the limit of the unlimited; because by its very nature it cannot be grasped as a sum of qualities, not even as an infinite sum of qualities that have been raised to transcendence; because it is not found either in or outside the world; because it cannot be experienced; because it cannot be thought; because we transgress against it, against that which has being, if we say: ‘I believe that he is’---even ‘he’ is still a metaphor, while ‘you’ is not. And yet we reduce the eternal You ever again to an It, to something, turning God into a thing, in accordance with our nature. Not capriciously… the way from the living God and back to him again, the metamorphoses of the present, of embodiment in forms, of objectification, of conceptualization, dissolution, and renewal, are one way, are THE way.” (Pg. 160-161)
He points out, “Life’s rhythms of pure relation, the alternation of actuality and a latency in which only our strength to relate and hence also the presence, but not the primal presence, wanes, does not suffice man’s thirst for continuity. He thirsts for something spread out in time, for duration. Thus God becomes an object of faith. Originally, faith fills the temporal gaps between the acts of relation; gradually, it becomes a substitute for these acts. The ever new movement of being through concentration and going forth is supplanted by coming to rest in an It in which one has faith. The trust-in-spite-of-it-all … is transformed into the profiteer’s assurance that nothing can happen to him because he has the faith that there is One who would not permit anything to happen to him.” (Pg 162)
This book is an absolutely essential masterwork of both contemporary philosophy and spirituality; virtually EVERYONE would benefit from reading and studying it.
Martin Buber (1878-1965) was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher and scholar of the Hasidic movement. He taught philosophy from 1938-1951 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This book (`Ich und Du' in the German) was first published in 1923. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 185-page paperback edition.]
He begins with the statement, “The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak. The basic words are not single words but word pairs. One basic word is the word pair ‘I-You.’ The other basic word is the word pair ‘I-It’; but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It. Thus the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the basic word I-You is different from that in the basic word I-It.” (Pg. 53) He continues, “The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being. The basic word I-It can never be spoken with one’s whole being. (Pg. 54)
He observes, “Whoever says You does not have something for his object. For wherever there is something there is also another something; every It borders on other Its; It is only by virtue of bordering on others. But where You is said there is no something. You has no borders. Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.” (Pg. 55) He adds, “The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It. The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation.” (Pg. 56)
He explains, “I contemplate a tree. I can accept it as a picture… I can feel it as movement… I can assign it to a species… I can dissolve it into a number… and externalize it… But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It… This does not require me to forego any of the modes of contemplation… The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I must deal with it---only differently. One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity.” (Pg. 57-58)
He states, “What, then, does one experience of the You? Nothing at all. For one does not experience it. What, then, does one know of the You? Only everything. For one no longer knows particulars. The You encounters me by grace---it cannot be found by seeking. But that I speak the basic word to it is a deed of my whole being, is my essential deed. The You encounters me. But I enter into a direct relationship to it… All actual life is encounter. The relation to the You is unmediated.” (Pg. 62)
He notes, “The It-world hangs together in space and time. The You-world does not hang together in space and time. The individual You MUST become an It when the event of relation has run its course. The individual It CAN become a You by entering into the event of relation.” (Pg. 84) He adds, “Even whispering an amorous ‘You’ with one’s soul is hardly dangerous as long as in all seriousness one means nothing but experiencing and using.” (Pg. 85)
He points out, “Marriage can never be renewed except by that which is always the source of all true marriage: the two human beings reveal the You to one another. It is of this that the You that is I for neither of them builds a marriage. This is the metaphysical and metapsychical fact of love which is merely accompanied by feelings of love.” (Pg. 95) Later, he adds, “When a man loves a woman so that her life is present in his own, the You of her eyes allows him to gaze into a ray of the eternal You.” (Pg. 154)
He states, “The spirit is truly ‘at home with itself’ when it can confront the world that is opened up to it, give itself to the world, and redeem it and, through the world, also itself. But the spirituality that represents the spirit nowadays is so scattered, weakened, degenerate, and full of contradictions that it could not possibly do this until it had first returned to the essence of the spirit: being able to say You.” (Pg. 100)
He argues, “The linguistic form proves nothing. After all, many a spoken You really mean an It to which one merely says You from habit, thoughtlessly. And many a spoken It really means a You whose presence one may remember with one’s whole being, although one is far away… If one sentence truly intends the You of a relation and the other one the It of an experience, and if the I in both sentences is thus intended in truth, do both sentences issue from the same self-consciousness?” (Pg. 111)
He clarifies, “Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons. One is the spiritual form of natural differentiation, the other that of natural association. The purpose of setting oneself apart is to experience and use, and the purpose of that is ‘living’---which means dying one human life long. The purpose of relation is the relation itself---touching the You. For as soon as we touch a You, we are touched by a breath of eternal life.: (Pg. 112-113)
He suggests, “all names of God remain hallowed---because they have been used not only to speak OF God but also to speak TO him…whoever pronounces the word God and really means You, addresses, no matter what his delusion, the true You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other and to whom he stands in a relationship that includes all others. But whoever abhors the name and fancies that he is godless---when he addresses with his whole devoted being the You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other, he addresses God.” (Pg. 123-124)
He observes, “in truth, there is no God-seeking because there is nothing where one could not find him. How foolish and hopeless must one be to leave one’s way of life to seek God: even if one gained all the wisdom of solitude and all the power of concentration, one would miss him.” (Pg. 128)
He says, “God embraces but is not the universe; just so, God embraces but is not my self. On account of this which cannot be spoken about, I can say in my language, as all can say in theirs: You. For the same of this there are I and You, there is dialogue, there is language, and spirit whose primal deed language it, and there it, in eternity, the word.” (Pg. 143)
He explains, “Three are the spheres in which the world of relation is built: The first: life with nature, where the relation sticks in threshold of language. The second: life with men, where it enters language. The third: life with spiritual beings, where it lacks but creates language.” (Pg. 149-150)
He notes, “By its very nature the eternal You cannot become an It; because by its very nature it cannot be placed within measure and limit, not even within the measure of the immeasurable and the limit of the unlimited; because by its very nature it cannot be grasped as a sum of qualities, not even as an infinite sum of qualities that have been raised to transcendence; because it is not found either in or outside the world; because it cannot be experienced; because it cannot be thought; because we transgress against it, against that which has being, if we say: ‘I believe that he is’---even ‘he’ is still a metaphor, while ‘you’ is not. And yet we reduce the eternal You ever again to an It, to something, turning God into a thing, in accordance with our nature. Not capriciously… the way from the living God and back to him again, the metamorphoses of the present, of embodiment in forms, of objectification, of conceptualization, dissolution, and renewal, are one way, are THE way.” (Pg. 160-161)
He points out, “Life’s rhythms of pure relation, the alternation of actuality and a latency in which only our strength to relate and hence also the presence, but not the primal presence, wanes, does not suffice man’s thirst for continuity. He thirsts for something spread out in time, for duration. Thus God becomes an object of faith. Originally, faith fills the temporal gaps between the acts of relation; gradually, it becomes a substitute for these acts. The ever new movement of being through concentration and going forth is supplanted by coming to rest in an It in which one has faith. The trust-in-spite-of-it-all … is transformed into the profiteer’s assurance that nothing can happen to him because he has the faith that there is One who would not permit anything to happen to him.” (Pg 162)
This book is an absolutely essential masterwork of both contemporary philosophy and spirituality; virtually EVERYONE would benefit from reading and studying it.
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December 23, 2025I read this after a conversation with my old rabbi. I noted, in my opinion, how G-d appears when we deepen relationships with each other. Essentially, my thoughts were close to Buber's. I try to see life in the world of I-Thou, not I-it.
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